


something’s telling me i must go home

by maybesandsomedays, ohfiitz



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Boston, F/M, First Meetings, Meet-Cute, i don't know!, idk what else to tag??, it's fitzsimmons being dumb what else would it be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 14:04:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6987997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maybesandsomedays/pseuds/maybesandsomedays, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohfiitz/pseuds/ohfiitz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jemma sets out to explore her city and meets a charming stranger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	something’s telling me i must go home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [theradiointukyshead](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theradiointukyshead/gifts).



> Happy happy birthday, Hoang Anh! Once upon a time we learned that you love Boston, and it's always been our dream city as well, so we wanted to write our favorite nerds falling in love in our favorite city. We hope you like it!! We love you SO MUCH and someday all three of us are going to live in Boston and meet Fitz the condicktor ;)
> 
> Title is from _Massachusetts_ by the Bee Gees because why not.

Jemma smooths out her blouse and puts on her shades, taking a deep breath as she prepares to go out on a non-work-related Saturday for the first time in months, maybe even years, if you exclude those weekends she spends at the Museum of Science. And for someone who’s been living in a place so rich in history and culture for a couple of years now, she’s barely even seen half the sights Boston is known for. Perhaps Daisy is right. She _does_ need to get out more.

And a Duck Tour is the perfect way to do that. She can learn more about her city and maybe even meet someone (not that she needs a companion to make her happy, and it’s not like she’s looking for a committed relationship either, but she _is_ still an eighteen-year-old with desires and curiosities of the physical nature, and it’s been far too long since she’s kissed or even hold hands with someone). And she even gets to go to the Museum again in the process.

She rides her bike down Cambridge St. to the Museum of Science where she finds a handful of people, mostly excited kids with their not-so-excited parents, already gathered for the tour. After a few minutes of waiting and casting wistful glances at her happy place, their assigned DUKW, or “duck,” a purple amphibious WWII vehicle named North End Norma, arrives. A man in Victorian clothing, a top hat, a lab coat, a monocle, and a telescope steps out of the DUKW animatedly. Jemma barely has a moment to wonder just what exactly the character is supposed to be, when an even more confusing mix of a Boston and a Scottish accent startles her.

“My name’s Percival Know-All, and I’ll let you discover Boston like I discovered Pluto!” he announced. “Come right on aboard Norma here!”

“That’s not quite right,” Jemma counters instinctively, getting closer and stopping in front of him. _He could be cute under that fake mustache_ , she muses. “Percival Lowell began the search for Pluto, but it was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, fourteen years after Lowell’s death.”

“Ah, seems _you’re_ the know-it-all!” he says, grinning, and his tone is light and teasing, and she smiles back as she watches his cheeks turn an adorable shade of pink.

“Perhaps. But I’ll leave that to you for the rest of the tour, I hope.” She climbs the stairs to the duck, immensely enjoying knowing that his eyes are following her.

Despite her initial longing for her usual visit at the museum, Jemma finds herself enjoying the soft, summery breeze as they traverse the Charles River. She feels her skin warming up under the gentle attention of the Boston sun, and sighs in contentment as she realizes it’s the most relaxed she’s felt in months. And of course, the charming “conducktor” increases her…erm, enjoyment, as well. She hears herself giggling at the way he struggles (and fails) to pronounce Faneuil Hall without his distinctly Scottish twang.

The man’s shyness about his poor attempt at a Boston accent, coupled with his obvious enthusiasm for talking about the city’s history is endearing, and Jemma gets the alarming feeling that she’s half-in love with the blue-eyed stranger by the time they approach the end of the tour. And it’s stupid, really, because Jemma Simmons doesn’t just “fall in love” with strangers. In fact, Jemma Simmons doesn’t just fall in love with anyone, period. The nagging desire to taste those lips against her own in front of so many people is therefore a clear anomaly, and Jemma knows that it is only her duty as a scientist to investigate such desire more closely.

“Percival Know-All” announces that they’ve gotten deep enough into the river so that any child who wants a turn driving the DUKW can have their chance. Seeing her own chance, Jemma heads up to the front to stand by him.

“I do know that Tombaugh discovered Pluto, not Lowell,” he says when she approaches, quietly enough so that the kids couldn’t hear him and using his natural accent. “I tried to tell them that, but they liked this character. Just turn the wheel to the left a little, that’s it, there you go,” he adds to the child driving, louder and back to Bostonian.

“Ah, so you actually are as smart as you seem?” Jemma tries to ask seductively, twirling her hair around her finger and fluttering her eyelashes a little bit too rapidly. He must think she caught some dust in her eyes.

He gapes. “You think I’m—? Well, I uh—I hope so?”

“Well I think you are. You certainly have a…” She pauses, trying to think of a flirtatious way to compliment his intellect. Although she’s flirted successfully many times, intellectual flirtation was never required. She likes it. “...gorgeous head.”

What. “I mean… with all that knowledge… that is... in your head?”

“You too,” he breathes, and she’s shocked that he actually seemed to take her terrible attempt as the greatest compliment he’s ever heard. “The best head. My favorite head.”

She giggles rather embarrassingly, biting the inside of her cheek to stop the giddiness from bursting forth as he grins at her. “We should probably stop talking.”

“Can I kiss you?” he asks, and she nods eagerly without thinking, but then he jumps back. “Ah! Okay, time for me to take the wheel again, oh no…” He hurriedly throws himself down into the seat and looks at her apologetically. “Sorry. When we get back to the museum?”

“When we get back to the museum,” she agrees, and sits back down, in the first seat diagonal to the driver’s side so she can gaze at his profile and imagine the lips she’ll be kissing very soon. The mere thought sends a tingling sensation warmer than the summer sun, and her heart beats with anticipation. Logically - and Jemma has always been a very logical, very rational person, thank you very much - she _knows_ it’s a stupid idea to be engaging in such a dangerous level of flirtation with a stranger, but her neural circuits seem to be thinking otherwise.

There’s something about him, or maybe everything about him, that makes her bold somehow, brave in the all the ways she never knew she could be. So when she sees him running up to her shortly after the group piles out of the vehicle (having taken off the fake mustache, thank heavens), she promptly pulls him by the collar and presses their lips together.

The kiss is clumsy at first, their lips learning the unfamiliar terrain of each other, but after the tip of his tongue touches her bottom lip briefly, just briefly, like a shy and hesitant _hello,_ they begin to move in a rhythm that’s way too easy and real for two people who don’t even know each other’s names. Maybe it’s the salty tang of summer in his tongue, maybe it’s the way he breathes into her mouth just right, but for some inexplicable reason kissing him feels like kissing the city itself. Warm, rich, and welcoming, and right in every way. And if _this_ is what she’s been missing the past two years, Jemma thinks as she sinks her fingers into his pillowy curls, then she _really_ needs to see more of Boston.

When they eventually have to break apart, he leans his forehead against hers, closes his eyes, and smiles. “I, uh, I have to get ready for the next tour,” he murmurs.

“Mm. You wouldn’t want the people to miss out on Mr. Know-It-All.”

“I _do_ know it all,” he says, and she rolls her eyes and pecks his lips one more time.

“Go. Don’t disappoint the people. And uh, I’ll see you again?”

“Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, _definitely_ ,” he agrees with enthusiasm, his head bobbing up and down, and it continues to do until he’s watching her walk away.

“Good luck on the tour!” she calls back to him when she’s a few feet away, and he blows her a kiss.

 It isn’t until Jemma gets home that she realizes she forgot to ask Percival’s real name, or even to give him her own.

* * *

Jemma checks the room number again, bristling, to be _sure_ she has the right lecture hall. Fuck this new guest lecturer who everyone’s so excited about. He wasn’t anyone of huge note, as far as she could tell from Google and several reputed scientific journals, just a young “prodigy” from MIT. Who doesn’t even have a single Ph.D! Seriously? What is Tufts even thinking, letting some _single-degreed_ moron guest-lecture? But then again, one can never trust engineers to make wise decisions.

_Her_ , on the other hand. Just as young and with one Ph.D. already and another on the way. Her blood boils again as she remembers that people aren’t flocking to _her_ lectures even when she’s clearly smarter and more impressive. And what, just because she’s a woman?

People were idiots.

But she figures she may as well go see just why everyone loves this new buffoon. Maybe there was a good reason. Not that there had been for any other academic she’d met in the past; most, while highly intelligent, weren’t interesting at all. Sure, she’d heard the girls in her class swooning about this cute engineer from a neighboring school, but that’s probably all he is, anyway. Just some well-formed nerd with a symmetrical face and hipster glasses and tight-fitting pants. She’s seen too many of those in her academic career to know that their levels of intellect rarely even live up to the curvature of their privileged asses. Honestly. She did not spend her teenage years trying to break through the glass ceiling of the academe just to be overshadowed by some supposed “genius” living off of his parents’ money.

She scoffs at the injustice as she plops down onto one of the corner seats, well-hidden behind the shadows of the dim auditorium. A short, gawky figure (in tight-fitting slacks! _Ha,_ she knew it) enters the auditorium and saunters rather awkwardly to the podium, and she squints her eyes to see his face as he turns to face the class.

The man (guy? boy? he looks too young and shy to be a man but those buttocks and those forearms are way too sculpted for a— _Focus, Jemma_ ) appears to arrange the mic for an abnormally long period of time before finally clearing his throat and addressing the audience with a very distinct, _very_ familiar Scottish brogue. “Uh, well, good morning, I’m Professor Fitz—ah, am I a professor? Er, Guest Lecturer Fitz? I haven’t really done this before. Anyway, good morning, all.”

Jemma’s pen drops out of her hand and she hastily scrambles to reach down and retrieve it. Her mind whirls a million miles a minute, trying to comprehend the sight in front of her, and the only reasonable thing she can think to do is to move down to a seat closer to the front.

_It can’t be._

She continues to squint at the stage, trying to convince herself that maybe if she tried hard enough, the person in front of her would take the form of the tall, muscled, entitled, academic fuckboy she imagined rather than that of the previously nameless man she’s been infatuated with for only about a month.

The guy—Fitz, she _really_ likes that name—catches her eyes as he continues to ramble on about his joint research with the Tufts engineering lab, and his jaw drops along with his microphone.

“Ah, sorry, just a sex—SEC!” he yelps, diving to gather his microphone and blushing to the shade of one of New England’s famous lobster. Jemma giggles, then immediately claps her hand over her mouth. What the hell was _that?_ Jemma Simmons never giggles. This day is becoming alarmingly weirder by the minute. Maybe the cosmos is punishing her for trying to sneak into enemy territory.

Instead, her eyes move downward to stare at the ever-present bulge in Fitz’s jeans that she wishes were tenting to be even bigger, the way it’s been appearing in all of her fantasies of late. She realizes she’s never been so grateful for tight trousers.

She squirms in her seat, eager for the class to end so she can talk to him. Just to talk, of course. As professional colleagues, having a professional conversation. After all, as the senior (and obviously superior) instructor between the two of them, it is only common courtesy to welcome him to the institution. Right. Of course.

* * *

Fitz fidgets with his microphone, clearing his throat after probably every other sentence and becoming increasingly aware that his first ever lecture is a complete disaster. But it doesn’t matter now, does it? Because she’s _there._ She’s right there in his class and she’s a _student. His_ student. He kissed a student and oh god he’s gonna get fired isn’t he? She’s gonna report him to the ethics committee and there’s going to be an investigation and everything and he will be kicked out of the project and maybe even from MIT and he’s never going to get that Ph.D.

_Oh god._

He fumbles his way through the rest, trying desperately not to look at her again, but it’s hard when he’d much rather be giving a lecture on her instead. He finally gets to the “Thank you” ending of his speech and tries to pack up quickly to run away, when her voice rings out in the suddenly-empty auditorium.

“That was a great class, Guest Lecturer Fitz.”

He freezes. “Oh, I, uh, you think so?” He starts rubbing the back of his neck.

“Mm. Definitely. You looked _great_ up at that podium.” She holds out her hand to him.

“I’m Jemma, by the way.”

“Fitz.”

And then she’s kissing him.

Fitz’s mind short-circuits and he kisses her back eagerly, and it’s all he’s ever wanted in his life. His hands move to her waist and pull her closer and it’s even better than he remembered and—

He pulls away with a squeak. “Student!” he blurts, noticing the hurt look on her face, which then morphs into one of confusion.

“Is there one coming?” she asks, twisting her head around. “We could move this to my flat.”

“You’re...not a student?”

“Oh, no!” Jemma says. “Well, not here, anyway. At Harvard. I teach here.”

He’s so happy with this news (and the renewed possibility of his Ph.D. coming to fruition) that he kisses her this time, only to pull away again. “Why were you in my lecture then?”

“Oh.” She blushes. “I...people were rather excited about you and I wanted to see you for myself.”

He snorts at the idea and runs one hand nervously through his hair. “Didn’t quite live up to the hype, then, did I?”

“On the contrary, Mr. Fitz,” Jemma replies, sliding her hand from his collar down to his chest. “I rather think you’d be a great addition to Tufts, and I find it my duty as a member of the faculty to give you a proper welcome. What do you say to a walk and maybe tea in the Public Gardens?”

He smiles at her, remembering the day they passed by the same place weeks ago.

“I say that’d be fantastic.”


End file.
